Fight For Her
by Merodach
Summary: What happens when you take the UEG and the UNDF from the Halo franchise and place it within the Stargate universe? How will this powerful human civilization face the Goa'uld, Replicators, Wraith and the Ori and deal with the wide assortment of other civilizations scattered throughout this rich and bountiful universe that conceals untold dangers and horrors, human or otherwise?


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Halo or any of the other franchises that I will be incorporating as the story progresses.

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><p><strong>General Warnings:<strong> AU, canon divergence, language, violence, crossovers, liberties with mixing my own ideas with canon explanations

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><p><strong>Summary:<strong> What happens when you take the UEG and the UNDF from the Halo franchise and place it within the Stargate universe? How will this powerful human civilization face the Goa'uld, Replicators, Wraith and the Ori and deal with the wide assortment of other civilizations scattered throughout this rich and bountiful universe that conceals untold dangers and horrors, human or otherwise?

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><p><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> This is my first shot at a Halo fanfiction and it was originally intended to be a big-ass oneshot, but my creative juices really got flowing when I started writing and the idea simply had too much potential for me to just drop it after a single chapter. So, here you go, my first crack at a Halo crossover. Hope you enjoy it.

1: This story will be an attempt at mixing the Stargate franchise with the Halo franchise, combining both rich back stories in such a way that they complement each other perfectly and fit together like a jigsaw puzzle without taking anything away from either backgrounds.

2: In my world of Halo the UNSC is not the main military, exploratory, and scientific agency of the UEG, but the UNDF, short for United Nations Defence Force, is. The UNSC is simply a single piece of a greater organisation that protects the humans of Earth and guides its technological development. The UNSC only controls all the space born assets under UEG control.

3: The UEG and the UNDF will be significantly more technologically advanced than in Halo canon because the story does take place five hundred years in the future and yet some of their tech is inferior to modern day equivalents, and that's not even mentioning the wide bevy of incredible technology that's being talked about and is in development _today_ but is never even mentioned in Halo, so some more exotic pieces of technology will be making an appearance in the story, some minor and easily overlooked and some which will be real game breakers.

4: The Convenant didn't encounter the humans of the UEG in 2525 thanks to an as of yet unspecified reason which made them turn their attention else where in the Orion arm of the galaxy for continued expansion and search for Forerunner ruins. As a result, the inevitable Human-Covenant war got pushed back by at least a decade and a half, which gave the UNDF the time needed to complete operation _Trebuchet_, putting a permanent end to the Insurrection, returning control over the Outer Colonies back over to the UEG, which thanks to political reforms to the very thing that had caused the Insurrection (disproportionate distribution of political power) and massive monetary and humanitarian aid to the damaged colonies made most people, even sympathizer and previous die hard collaborators of the Insurrection content with the current state of things and willingly return their allegiance back to the UEG.

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><p><span><strong>Chapter 1: Prologue<strong>

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><p><strong>I.<strong>

**August 12 2536.**  
><strong><em>Marathon<em>-class Heavy Cruiser _Fight For Her._**  
><strong>Epsilon Eridani system - in<strong> **geosynchronous orbit of Reach.**

The world below spun by ever so slowly from the perspective of the single human watching from the observation deck, yet things could be very different from what they appeared to be sometimes. Captain António da costa contreiras knew that planet spinning by beneath his command, the beautiful green and blue marble shadowed by the ethereal blue nebula that made the planet so eternally beautiful, was actually spinning on its axis many _many_ times the speed of sound. Yet up here, in the safety of his newest command Reach seemed to spin ever so slowly and delicately in its place in the Epsilon Eridani system.

"It's beautiful, ain't it?" asked a bright, almost child-like voice to his right and slightly behind him.

António didn't turn away from his planet gazing. Instead, he let out a little repentant sigh and smiled to himself. "I guess it was a bit too much to hope for that I could avoid you up here even for a little while."

In response to that he received a little giggle from his unwanted but unavoidable guest.

Finally turning around and away from the breath-taking sight the good Captain tried to make eye contact with his quest and almost didn't manage it. The reason for that was rather simple. The shadows in the room, which were spars and far between thanks to the overhead fluorescent lighting, seemed cling to this person like a second skin, hiding her - Antonio was sure that it was a her. The voice was simply to girly to be anything else - completely from view. The man could only barely make out her height and complexion, and even then he couldn't even completely be sure of _that_.

The only thing he was sure about was her eye colour. There was no way he could mistake those deep, emerald coloured orbs for any other colour.

António wondered for a brief moment if the shadows that seemed to cling to her were caused by some convoluted device that some mad scientist had come up with or that they were simply a side effect of the mysterious aura that seemed to permeate all ONI operatives before he discarded that line of thought. ONI agents were always secretive, especially agents from section three and the good Captain had a gut feeling that he was dealing with one of, if not _the_ best agent ONI had to offer. The reason why she was here mandated the use of the best of the best.

The woman took a step forwards and the light seemed to bend around her in complete denial of physics. A grin appeared in the darkness, a line of white slashing through the shadows just beneath the emerald eyes. "You should have known, Captain. Hiding from ONI is as useless as trying to eat with your mouth sown shut. It's impossible, and everybody knows it."

António gave her a dry look. "Whatever gave you the idea that I was hiding, Lieutenant? Can't a good Captain have a good look at their newest command before its crew arrives? I have read the specs on the new bird, but reading about something does not give a one a good feel of what a ship is really capable of. You know what they say, a good Captain knows his ship."

The mysterious ONI operative snorted, loudly. "Don't try to fool me, _Captain_. You just happen to find yourself on the newest Mark II Marathon just the same day the DELTA class encoded message you received earlier this week stated that you would be sought out by an ONI agent. Yeah, I'm not buying it. Do you know how tight security can be on a state of the art warship capable of dealing out more destruction and taking more damage an order of magnitude greater then previous generation Marathon's? You wouldn't believe to what lengths I had to go to get on this ship without anyone being any the wiser."

António smiled at the annoyance the ONI agent was too controlled to show on her face and voice but was evident from the rampant twitch in her hand that didn't seem to be going away anytime soon.

"The message also suggested that it would be best if I sought out an isolated location in order for the meeting to take place in utmost secrecy," the Captain with Italian roots retorted. He gestured to the room around them, which was empty except for the two of them. "I think I can say that I delivered. You aren't gonna get anymore isolated then on a ship in space crewed by only a skeleton crew. The AI hasn't even been installed yet, so you can be sure no one is looking in on us."

The ONI agent rolled her emerald eyes in annoyance at the technically correct retort before letting out a long, drawn out sigh as she seemed to deflate a little. "Whatever. I don't have the time nor the patience to argue with you, so I will get right down to business," she said before reaching into her pocket and retrieving a palm-sized object that she immediately threw towards the Captain across from her.

Reacting on instinct António swung up his arm and caught the object just seconds before it would have impacted with his head. He shot an annoyed look at the now smirking ONI spook before looking at the object in his hand and found himself duly unsurprised to find himself staring at a datapad. He looked back up at the ONI operative before returning his gaze back down at the datapad and flicked it on with his thumb.

"All the information you will need for your mission you will find on that datapad," the ONI agent announced officially, suddenly all business. There was a hard glint in her eyes as she regarded António, waiting to see how he would react to the information she was about to share and what was on the datapad. The playful demeanor she had been sporting since the start of the conversation disappeared in a flash to be replaced with a focused mindset.

"This mission is classified at the highest level possible. Only the President, the Chief of Naval Operations, the head of ONI and select few ONI operatives and Admirals are aware of what's about to go down. As such, it speaks for itself that you aren't allowed to speak of this to anyone. You also aren't allowed to inform your crew and battlegroup until after you have departed for slipspace."

António nodded along absently at the conditions the ONI spook set down. He had already expected those kind of restrictions the moment he received the DELTA-class encoded message. His mind was more preoccupied by looking at the information slowly scrolling by on the datapad then the words coming out of the mouth of the shadow clad ONI spook.

After a certain point he suddenly froze, his entire posture freezing without warning. Then his head snapped up, his eyes wide open in disbelieve as he regarded the ONI operative. Seeing her stoic look he immediately recognized that the information on the datapad was no joke, which was confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt when the ONI spook nodded her head in a grave manner in confirmation, the stoic look on her shadowed face giving way to a serious frown.

Swallowing heavily, the Captain looked back down on at the datapad and continued on scrolling through the data and instructions/orders. His eyes remained riveted on the screen even as they widened every few moments whenever another shocking piece of information was read and memorized, not once looking up at the stoic woman who had revealed such incredible information to him.

It was five minutes later when he finished reading and when he did the Captain let out a deep sigh and seemed the slump a little when the enormity of the situation dawned on him. Still, as shocking and world shifting as the information he had just received was it didn't take him long to rally his wits about him. He straightened up, making his now hard eyes make direct eye contact with the ONI spook who looked back at him with a hint of approval shining in the back of her dark, emerald eyes.

"I see that the files that I read about you weren't wrong," the ONI agent said, her emerald eyes piercing into his own and seemingly looking directly into his soul. António barely withheld a shiver at that look. "Disciplined, but not to stuck up on protocol. A competent, aggressive Captain, though not one who doesn't act without thinking his actions through thoroughly and is not adverse to taking advise from others. Always following orders to the letter, but is flexible when needed. That's what the files said about your temperament in and outside of fleet engagements, just the kind of Captain that we need for this kind of mission."

Having said that the ONI spook paused for a moment before smirking and reclining her head to the side as she regarded him intently. "Though it doesn't hurt to add that you have never lost any such engagement yet in your entire service in the UNSC. After all, failure is not an option on a mission such as this."

António nodded tersely in agreement. This mission could possibly lead to a revelation that could change the very fabric of humanity and what they perceived to be their place in the galaxy. Regardless of whether he did or did not fail this mission, that was fact that could not be denied. As matter of fact, it was freakishly close to how the Insurrection had played a vital role in the changes and acceleration in human development up to and beyond its final conclusion.

The end of the Insurrection. That was a subject still fresh in many people memories. After all it had only been about a year and a half since the last of the organized resistance in the Outer Colonies had lain down their arms and surrendered to the UEG and the UNDF.

A conflict that had only recently been put to rest the Insurrection had found its root cause closely intertwined with the socioeconomic composition and role of humanity's Outer Colonies as well as the realities of interstellar expansion. This conflict had left its mark on human history and had forced the quick acceleration of human development in both the technological and social sense.

Thankfully, the UEG and the UNDF had been able to put down the Insurrection with the final conclusion of operation _Trebuchet_. The operation together with the Insurrection itself had cost the UEG millions in lives and resources, but in the end they had been able subdue the rebels through a mixed bag of military actions and political reforms, simultaneously destroying the cause and reason behind the Insurrection as well as the movement itself in one fell swoop.

For the most part the last year and a half had been peaceful, their recovering society almost completely aimed at rebuilding the damage done to the Outer Colonies and recreating the ties between the core worlds and the Outer Colonies. There was an occasional bump on the road of recovery to be sure, but they were small and far between thanks to the fact that fast majority of the population was content with the current state of things.

There was also the added benefit that the technology that had been developed, refined and used extensively during the war, tools born from the most wide spread conflict ever recorded in human history, were now being adapted for every day use, raising the quality of life of the average person by quite a bit was certainly helping matters along between the core worlds and the Outer Colonies. After all, happy citizens are contend and productive citizens.

But now a new factor had entered the equation, one that could easily potentially upset the delicate new status quo the UEG had worked so hard to attain.

Antonio closed his eyes for a moment as he contemplated the information he had just been given together with its possible consequences if and when it became common knowledge, so long as the information in question was true or at least and not faulty in some way. Including the current situation within the UEG together with this... outside interference meant that the situation had the potential to go really bad if the report he had just read was accurate.

But that was a matter for another time. He had his orders and he would act them out to the best of his ability.

Seeing that the Captain had finished processing the information and the possible consequences that could come from it the ONI spook decided to continued where she had left of. "Your battlegroup will be finished coming together in about two days, Captain. You have until then to organize your own ship. On the third day you will ship out towards the Procyon system and take up orbit in the planet of Arcadia were the prowler _Eternal Dusk _will await you with further instructions and coordinates towards your final destination. There you will either make friendly contact with the unknowns or deal with them accordingly."

Nodding grimly, António acknowledged his orders without even blinking. "Anything else that I should be aware about?"

In response he received a serious frown and a steadfast nod from the shadow-clad ONI spook. "Yes, no matter what happens I have been told to tell you by the UNDF High-Command itself that you _must_ find out how a primitive human civilization could exist more then one hundred light years beyond our current borders and how these unknowns are tied to it. Did they merely find them or did they transplant these people from Earth a long time ago? If so, for what purpose and why? These are things that we must know if we are to deal with these unknowns in any capacity."

Having said that the ONI agent once again reached into another one of her pockets and retrieved a datachip before throwing it towards the Captain who similarly caught it. "On that datachip are the files and all you need to know about the ambassadors who will be meeting with the unknowns, if they prove friendly at least. We will also be sending along an expert on ancient Earth cultures who also is an accomplished linguist. It will be his job to make contact with the humans exhibiting traits of ancient Egyptian civilization found on the as of yet unnamed planet."

António's lip curled down slightly. The Captain could easily read between the lines of what the ONI spook was telling him. The ambassadors were basically being ordered to _demand _- not ask but demand - information from the unknowns if they were unwilling to share the details of what they knew of this highly unusual situation, not even mentioning the unsaid but equally important demand of knowing what the unknowns intentions were towards said humans.

This could go bad in so many ways that he didn't even attempt to think up all the ways this could blow up in his face, and he secretly cursed these orders in privacy of his own mind, even when he understood where High Command was coming from. It was a highly unusual situation with so many ifs or buts attached to it that the problem resembled a porcupine of thorny issues and potential pitfalls. Their leaders needed all the information they could get their hands on before they would be able to make an informed decision and they weren't squeamish about getting that information in any way possible.

His orders still sucked though.

Having turned his eyes downwards in thought as he acknowledged his orders and contemplated their possible consequences he looked back up and blinked in surprise as he saw empty space in front of him. Then he blinked again a second later when he realized that the ONI agent had disappeared the moment he took his eyes off of her. She had obviously concluded that the moment she had relayed his orders that she wasn't needed anymore and left without even a by your leave.

António's eyebrow twitched before he rolled his eyes and sighed. Leave it to ONI to act all mysterious and sneaky when it wasn't even necessary. He looked back down at the datapad and his eye twitch came back with a vengeance when he realized that the data on it had deleted itself when he was distracted. The physical retention of the data may not be necessary, considering the fact that his Neural Interface that was embedded in the back of his head had stored the data the moment he had read it, but it was still annoying.

Gods, how he hated the cloak and dagger behaviour of ONI.

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><p><strong>I<strong>I<strong>.**

**August 15 2536.**  
><strong><em>Marathon<em>-class Heavy Cruiser _Fight For Her._**  
><strong>Epsilon Eridani system - pulling away from <strong>**Reach along with battlegroup _Count Me In_.**

António reclined back in his command chair, quietly reveling in the fact that it was real leather and not some synthetic imitation. After all, as the Captain of one of the most powerful ships ever constructed by human hands he deserved the few Captain's privileges that came with it. His Mark II _Marathon_-class Heavy Cruiser was capable of destroying smaller ships in the UNSC navy with a single folly, the power of its main guns easily capable of gutting Corvettes, Frigates and Destroyers from stem to stern in a single shot. And that was not even mentioning secondary weapons and the pounding his ship could take.

The Captain looked around the CIC situated in bowels of his ship, a far more logical placement then the previous standard bow oriented bridge on the now outdated and retired ship designs of the previous generation. People scurried back and forth over the cavernous room, carrying themselves in brisk hurriedness. The demeanor on the bridge being one of calm professionalism as his subordinates worked to coördinate his battlegroup into a loose and disciplined formation and get them ready to leave this dimension and enter the slipspace stream.

Having completed his survey António found himself pleased that his subordinates were doing their jobs with admirable zeal and fortitude. His eyes returned to the center of the room, which was dominated by a single large holographic projection, around which the bridge had been designed and built. It depicted the Epsilon Eridani system with a stunning degree of accuracy, the brand spanking new and top of the line sensor suite being perfectly able to map out and display the entire system and all the objects of relevance within said system in real-time.

This ranged from large celestial bodies like the central star and the seven planetary bodies that orbited it together with the wide assortment of smaller bodies that littered the system such as the asteroid belt that circled the system in between the fourth and fifth planet and the moons orbiting Reach itself, which were all depicted perfectly to scale.

This together with the hundreds of blue dots that represented each and every friendly warship of every classification that moved in neatly organized clusters around the system made the hologram and the system it depicted look like a beehive of activity, while in actuality the battlegroups in which the ships had been organized were at least thousands of kilometers apart from each other.

With a mental command through his Neural Interface António had the incredibly large hologram zoom in on the twenty-six blue dots that represented battlegroup _Count Me In_, which was slowly pulling away from Reach and any other battlegroup in the vicinity. As it did so the tiny blue dots transformed from their ambiguous shape into scale representations of all the vessels under his command cruising side by side in a disciplined formation. The Captain took the chance to study the forces given to him for this mission and their technical specifications.

At the head of the formation were fifteen Frigates of the _Paris_, _Stalwart_ and _Charon _classes. They were small vessels compared to the behemoth Cruisers or even the smaller Destroyers, having the weakest ship to ship combat capability as well as the lightest defensive measures of any ship in the fleet, yet they were undoubtedly the fastest vessels under his command. Behind them came the seven just recently developed _Prometheus_-class Heavy Destroyers, the smallest ships capable of fielding the newest addition to the main weaponry of the UNDF, the Particle Accelerator Cannon, or PAC for short.

Rounding out his battlegroup came two of the newest heavily upgraded _Halcyon_-class Cruisers. Previously considered somewhat of a joke in the fleet, these ships had been retrofitted extensively in the waning days of the Insurrection. Now sporting 160 Archer missile pods together with an extensive point defense array, not even mentioning its equally upgraded main armament consisting of a single new standard issue MAC and PAC coupled with the Halcyon's near legendary but costly and highly effective honeycombed hull, which was notorious for its sheer toughness, made the ship more then worthy of the Cruiser classification.

Finally, at the very back of the formation sat a single massive three kilometer long Carrier, its massive internal bays stocked to the bursting with GA-TL1 _Longsword_-class Interceptors**,** and of course his very own top of the line Mark II _Marathon_-class Cruiser.

António smiled like a child who had just gotten a new toy to play with as he had the hologram zoom in on one of the _Prometheus_-class Heavy Destroyers, getting an eye full of the deadly weapon mounted on the front of large warship. The _Prometheus_-class has the same basic design as a _Gorgon_-class Destroyer, only they were three hundred meters longer and had twice the tonnage. The main divergence is the twin pronged bow, which suspended between was the barrel of a comparatively thin cannon, far smaller then the signature gaping maw of a MAC cannon: a Particle Accelerator Cannon.

Particle accelerators have been a well-developed technology used in scientific research for centuries, but they had never been employed as a main combat weapon before. Laser beams begin to have plasma breakdown in space at energy densities of around one megajoule per cubic centimetre. This effect, called blooming, causes lasers to defocus and disperse energy into the surrounding space, giving such weapons only a very short theoretical range, not very conductive for combat in space were you where usually tens of thousands of kilometers apart from your opponent.

Of course, that still meant that they could be used for comparatively short-range purposes, like point defence and close range knive-fights between ships. The ion pulse lasers used to defend large capital ships against fighters and missiles of all kinds had a range of about thirty kilometers and had two settings, one that enabled high-power, slow charging shots to penetrate several meters thick armor and one that used low-power rapid-fire shots for point defence. A single ion pulse laser was capable of downing more then three dozen missiles in five seconds flat, a highly efficient defense developed during the Insurrection.

Nearly every inch of the gigantic hulls of all UNSC warships from the smallest Frigates to largest Carriers were covered in the overlapping fields of fire from these devastating weapons, creating a near impenetrable defense against fighter screens and missiles. When it had been developed during the Insurrection it had proven to be a highly effective counter measure against the rebels who could only harm an UNSC warship by swarming them with missiles and fighters, something that had become damn near impossible thanks to the creation of the venerable ion pulse laser point defence grid.

There had been two mayor roadblocks which had held the creation of a ship mounted main weapon energy weapon back however: power requirements and the near insurmountable 'blooming' effect. Shipboard reactors simply didn't have the juice needed to fuel such a weapon to allow it to reach over hundreds of thousands of kilometers in order to be effective, to say nothing over the energy dispersion that would make such a weapon system impossible to use. But recently there had been several break troughs in the field of directed energy weaponry and power generation, opening up the way for the creation of the PAC.

The first break through was the creation of the new ship mounted He-3 fusion triple helix reactor design. He-3 fusion was not a new technology, it had first been pioneered centuries ago and saw heavy usage on ground based reactors, like the ones fueling the assortment of ODPs, better known as Super MACs, in the orbit of Reach, Earth and a wide assortment of other vital worlds that needed such powerful weapons for protection, but they had never been used on a spaceship before.

The reason for that was simple. Size constraint and heat. The drawback of He-3 fusion reactions is its incredible many fold increase in critical pressure in order to maintain the reactions, which meant that it was a lot hotter, and therefore a lot harder to contain, causing the reactors to be a lot bigger in order to maintain containment. He-3 reactors were, while far more powerful and energy efficient than the standard deuterium and tritium fusion, simply not feasible on a warship thanks to the fact that the reactor would take up to much room on a space going vessel to be in anyway practical.

Luckily, the size and overheating issue had been solved with the latest reactor design. Until the invention of the now standard He-3 fusion triple helix reactor the excess heat was removed by conducting it towards a chemical agent which would then vent into space. However, with the new reactor design came an upgraded cooling system, which features a laser-induced optical slurry of ions chilled to near-absolute zero to neutralize the waste heat, which is far more efficient than the typical method and removed the reliance on expendable chemical temperature-control substances.

On top of that, the amount of excess heat removed by the new system increased as the reactors' output did. This self-regulating and self-cooling power plant was critical in combat since it virtually eliminated a commander's concerns about overheating and slagging a ship's engines, and opened up the way for the newest advances that had revolutionized space combat.

The design itself actually consisted out of three separate fusion reactors, two smaller ones dedicated to aiding the far larger and more powerful main reactor in maintaining containment. In a pinch the overlapping magnetic fields of each separate reactor can temporarily boost power by 300% for a limit amount of time during combat before the reactor would inevitably melt down.

Of course, this new reactor design had a lot more benefits than simply opening the door towards the creation of practical energy weaponry. With the extra power came a lot of extra benefits. The MAC recharges a lot faster, the ion pulse lasers could now be sustained nearly indefinitely if needed, and the engine output ceiling of each and every vessel in the fleet more then tripled, making even the heaviest tonnage capital ships capable of outrunning the previous deuterium and tritium fusion fueled Frigates of the previous generation, and that was only the tip of the iceberg.

The other break through was the recent discovery and the exploitation of what many call the 'Latimer' effect, named after the man who discovered it and studied it methodically for many years. This special just discovered natural phenomenon only occurs naturally in the outer reaches of a red giant, massive stars that have reached the end of their life cycle. In these areas, known as convection zones, energy comes together and travels through the star guided along by gravity and the Latimer effect, keeping the energy together, effectively 'gluing' it together so it can't disperse in the surrounding energy and continues on as one long stream through the outer layers of the star, circling the entire hyper condensed ball of plasma without losing cohesion.

With a lot of trail an error the leading scientists of the UNDF managed to artificially reproduce this effect, succeeding in 'gluing' highly energized particles of energy together for an extended period of time, knocking down the final barrier towards the creation of directed energy weaponry by completely circumventing the blooming effect.

In essence, the PAC uses a pinched electromagnetic field based off of the Latimer effect and powered by the most powerful and energy-consuming systems in the UNDF's arsenal to accelerate and direct charged particles coming from the ships own He-3 fusion reactor along a predetermined path. A wide array of electrostatic "lenses" found in the prongs surrounding the PAC focuses these streams of highly energized particles into a razor-thin highly sharp beam of energy travelling at near the speed of light.

Having the longest range of all the weapons employed by the UNDF by far coupled with its near surgical destructive potential made it one of the most devastating and efficient weapons ever conceived, right up there with the newest generations magnetic field energy recycling MACs, or what was better known as the Modified MAC.

The best part was that thanks to the new highly powerful and efficient reactor every ship in the UNSC fleet now fielded anything heavier then a Frigate was now capable of at least mounting a single PAC. Of course, everything had a drawback. The energy required to use a Particle Accelerator Cannon was still a massive drain on a He-3 reactor in spite of its great energy stores, so a Destroyer with its smaller and weaker reactor wouldn't be able to mount a PAC and a MAC at the same time. The energy drain was simply too huge to supply energy to both during combat.

That's why the new _Prometheus-_class Heavy Destroyers were designed and built around their new main armament instead of simply revamping an existing Destroyer class to incorporate a PAC. Even with such measures they were still only capable of mounting a single one of the energy weapons, all though they still had an extensive ion pulse laser point defense grid and a standard missile delivery system in conjunction with several meter thick Titanium-C battle armor, making it superior to every other ship in the fleet smaller than a Cruiser.

Fortunately, that weakness wasn't present in heavier tonnage vessels Antonio thought gleefully as he had the hologram shift away from the Destroyer and zoom in on his own ship, the newest and top of the line Mark II _Marathon_-class Cruiser he now commanded.

The Mark II _Marathon_-class Cruiser was a thing of beauty. It had the same basic design as a Mark I but it was nearly 500 meters longer and three times as wide, giving it a total length of 1632 meters and a tonnage that dwarfed its predecessor coupled with armor that was on average six inches thicker. A wide and complicated array of ion pulse lasers dotted the steel grey surface, giving the ship complete coverage against fighters and missiles, interspaced with 300 oversized archer missile pods that poked out of the hull.

These weapons, though fearsome in their own right, paled against the ships main armament.

The two forward mounted gaping spinal cannons known far and wide as MACs, or Modified MACs in this case, made for a menacing sight. This image was only enhanced by the single PAC jutting out of the front the ship just above and center of the MACs. The best part was that this wasn't the only Particle Accelerator Cannon mounted to his ship. Two more PACs were fitted to the stern of the ship, normally hanging underneath its megastructure from long dual-barreled turrets that could rotate of full 360° but were currently recessed deep in the ships armor.

All together this extensive array of weaponry and incredibly thick state of the art armor made the Mark II _Marathon_-class ships one of the most deadly warships over built by the UNSC, only second to the even rarer still and incredibly expensive to build Mark III _Valiant_-class Super-Heavy Cruisers. Though that wasn't very surprising. The UNSC only had a handful of such ships, by comparison the Mark II _Marathon_-class was almost common despite its near legendary status in the fleet.

Antonio had a very difficult time envisioning that all this fire power would ever truly be needed in a practical sense. During the Insurrection no threat had ever materialized that could have warranted such an overwhelming response, only another battlegroup of similar size and composition could pose a real challenge. In short, there was no known entity within the human borders that could conceivable be a serious threat to this battlegroup.

Which at the moment meant nothing, he mentally amended to himself. After all, this particular situation found its roots beyond human borders.

The Captain was jolted from his thoughts when the ships AI appeared with a nearly silent echo of static at the holotank situated right next to his command chair. Having met the AI only a handful of times since it was installed just yesterday, primarily to introduce himself and to aid him in organizing his command, Antonio took the change to study his software based companion who was undoubtedly the smartest being on the ship.

Milos, the AIs self-given name, looked like a young ancient greek man about to take the last step from youth and into adulthood. He had spiky slightly swept back blond hair with a series of bangs obscuring his left eye. His face was ruggedly handsome, putting emphasis on his one visible clear blue eye which could have been mistaken for a chip of ice. He wore a beautiful and intricate toga inlaid with white, gold and red clot. The ancient clothing was so long that it would have swept the floor if worn by a human and was kept closed with a crimson red sash tied around the middle. Ancient greek sandals finished the assemble.

"Captain," the AI greeted him. The soft synthesized voice sounded youthful, though António could hear the deeper voice tones of a man starting to develop underneath it. Milos smiled benignly at him as he made his report. "Reactor shake down nearly complete. Oxygen, power, pressure and artificial gravity are all operating at maximum capacity. All weapon systems show green light and we are about to clear Reach's gravity well. Slipspace drive is warmed up and ready. Crew and personnel are awaiting your orders."

Antonio nodded in thanks at the AI and allowed his eyes to sweep across the CIC. All bridge personnel were now seated at their stations, all looking at him and awaiting his order to depart. None of them looked in any way nervous, Antonio noted somewhat absently. Every single one of them was a professional who had received extensive training before even setting foot on a warship and had served at least three years on a space going vessel before becoming a part of his command.

A part of that self-assured confidence was born out of experience and the fact that they intimately knew their jobs and what was expected from them. Another part was that they were simply unaware of the task that lay ahead of them and the possible repercussions that could come from it. He had, as instructed, withheld informing them of the situation. Most of them simply thought that this was your run of the mill shakedown run customary for new ships who have just entered service, though the truth was for more extraordinary.

He wasn't looking forward to popping their bubble of normality once they were en route to the Procyon system. What he was about to tell them would throw even the most professional military personnel of their game. The Captain just hoped that everything would remain calm.

Still, that was a worry for later. Now he just had to say a few words that he had uttered hundreds of times before, but this time they would kickstart a mission that stood poised to change... _everything_.

"Alright, let's get this show on the road," he muttered, before raising his voice. "All ships, prepare for fleet-wide FTL transit!"

The order was heard loud and clear across the CIC, causing all personnel to strap themselves in tightly in response and prepare the ship to enter the slipspace stream. At the same time the order was transmitted to all the other vessels under his command by the aids manning the consoles directly in front of him and across the central hologram while their fellow service man prepped the ship and the slipspace drive to breach the very fabric of space and time and achieve faster then light.

Miles counted down slowly. "Initiating slipspace jump in five... four... three... two... one," he spoke and the very moment he said one gravity amassed at the bow of every ship in the battlegroup. The gravity rippled, twisted and turned inside out as it ripped a hole through space-time in front of every ship before the slipspace drives on every ship under the guidance of the shipboard AIs fused the holes through space and time together, forming one huge slipspace buble, and with a roar of their powerful engines the ships of battlegroup _Count Me In_ charged into the breach...

...towards a whole new future.


End file.
